KABUL: Taleban insurgents yesterday launched a grenade and gun attack on Kabul airport, firing on military buildings before being overwhelmed in an operation hailed as a victory for Afghan security forces.
Two suicide bombers blew themselves up and all five other attackers were killed when elite Afghan troops stormed two half-built mansions where the militants were holed up near the airport’s perimeter fence.
The security forces’ response was widely praised as a sign of their growing professionalism as they take over responsibility from 100,000 US-led foreign combat troops who will pull out by the end of next year.
President Hamid Karzai, who is currently visiting Qatar, highlighted the effectiveness of the foreign-trained units after only two civilians suffered minor injuries in the attack.
“Brave Afghan security forces have the ability to repel any enemy attack and can protect people and their country,” Karzai said in a statement.
Loud explosions from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and sporadic bursts of small-arms fire continued for about four hours after the fighting awoke residents of the Afghan capital at 4:30 a.m. (midnight GMT).
“There were seven assailants — two (suicide bombers) died detonating themselves and five others were killed,” Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi told reporters.
The heavily-guarded airport, which has both civilian and military terminals, contains a large base for the US-led NATO coalition deployed to help Afghan forces thwart the 12-year insurgency.
“We can report that RPGs were fired in the direction of the airport but we don’t have any news of damage,” a NATO spokesman said.
Three suicide vests were found in the multi-story buildings where the insurgents had used RPGs and machine guns to fend off Afghan forces and to attack the airport on the northeast side of Kabul.
The militants, who wore military and police uniforms, did not manage to breach the airport’s grounds, though all flights were canceled or re-routed for several hours.
A Taleban spokesman said the group was responsible for the attack, adding that a large number of foreign and Afghan soldiers had been killed — a claim dismissed by Afghanistan and NATO.
A car laden with explosives at the scene was detonated deliberately by police using a RPG, a senior official said.
Also on Monday, six militants used a truck bomb to attack a provincial council building and voter registration center in the southern province of Zabul.
All the attackers were killed and three police and 15 civilians were wounded, officials said.
Boys beheaded
Taleban fighters beheaded two boys aged 10 and 16 as a warning to villagers not to cooperate with the Afghan government, local officials said.
The boys, named Khan and Hameedullah, had traveled to Afghan army and police checkpoints near their home in the southern province of Kandahar, scrounging for leftover food to bring to their families, the officials said.
“The boys were on their way back ... when they were stopped by Taleban insurgents who beheaded them,” the chief of Zhari district, Jamal Agha, told Reuters. “Both of them were innocent children and had nothing to do with government or foreigners.” The militants have beheaded dozens of people in the last two years, accusing them of aiding the government and its foreign backers led by the United States.
A Taleban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said the group was not involved in the boys’ killings.
The Kandahar governor’s spokesman, Javid Faisal, said the incident occurred on Sunday. Several hours later their bodies and severed heads were left in their village, he said.
Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taleban and one of Afghanistan’s most restive provinces.
In July last year in the same district, a 16-year-old boy accused by the Taleban of spying for the government was beheaded and skinned. The next month, a girl aged six and a boy of 12 were kidnapped and beheaded in separate incidents in Kandahar and the east of the country.
Such incidents highlight the difficulty that Taleban leaders have in enforcing discipline across an estimated 20,000 fighters spread from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
The leadership is trying to improve the group’s image in case it wants to push forward tentative reconciliation steps and perhaps even enter mainstream politics. But some militant units have proved hard to control, roaming the countryside and killing or maiming those they deem immoral.
The beheading occurred the day before seven Taleban insurgents including suicide bombers attacked country’s international airport in the capital, Kabul.
Also on Monday, six insurgents with suicide vests and heavy guns attacked a government compound in the provincial center of Zabul, wounding at least 18 people.
Concerns are mounting over how the 352,000-strong Afghan security forces will cope with an intensifying Taleban insurgency once most foreign troops leave by the end of next year.
